At a fundraiser hosted last week by venture capitalists David Sacks and Chamath Palihapitiya, Trump raked in millions as he courted prominent figures in the tech and cryptocurrency industries.
While some in Silicon Valley have long supported Republicans, a growing number who once donated to Democrats are now backing Trump’s bid against President Biden.
Shaun Maguire, a partner at the venture capital firm Sequoia Capital, came out in support of the former president last month, after he was convicted on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records.
“I just donated $300k to President Trump,” Maguire wrote in a post on the social platform X. “The timing isn’t a coincidence.”
Maguire noted in a lengthy post explaining his decision that he previously donated to and voted for Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
While he said he was “disillusioned and didn’t vote” in 2020, records show the venture capitalist continued to financially support Democratic candidates in lower-level races during that election cycle, according to the campaign finance tracker OpenSecrets.
“Now, in 2024, I believe this is one of the most important elections of my lifetime, and I’m supporting Trump,” Maguire added.
Tech adviser Jacob Helberg, who attended last Thursday’s fundraiser, was also once a prominent Democratic donor, contributing to Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Vice President Harris and even Biden as they vied for 2020 Democratic nomination.
However, the tides appear to have turned in late 2021, when Helberg began donating to several Republicans, including Arizona Senate candidate Blake Masters, Sen. Ted Cruz (Texas) and Sen. Tom Cotton (Ark.), according to OpenSecrets.
Helberg has since donated $1 million to the Trump campaign, according to The Washington Post.
“Last night, there was energy and excitement for a Republican presidential candidate unlike anything I’ve ever seen in Silicon Valley,” Helberg said in a statement following the fundraiser for the former president in San Francisco.
“This event was proof that President Trump’s campaign is creating a generational realignment among technology founders, Millennials, gays, and Jewish Americans that transcends party lines and makes him more competitive in even the most traditionally blue communities,” he added.
Wealthy tech entrepreneurs have previously been “very left-wing” on most issues other than regulation, said Neil Malhotra, a professor of political economy at the Stanford Graduate School of Business who surveyed hundreds of tech leaders for a 2017 paper.
“There’s been prominent people, both in the venture capital community and the founder community, that have kind of had a right-wing turn since around 2020,” Malhotra told The Hill.
Read more in a full report at TheHill.com.
